There is a need for bioinformatics support at all levels and times for projects in the Regional Center of Excellence (RCE) to maximize the efficiency and speed of the research and to make the results of the RCE research available to scientists and others to then exploit those findings to advance anti-Biothreat work across the nation. Bioinformatics tools, custom databases, experimental designs, data acquisition/archival/access methods and data analysis/interpretation methods are anticipated to have great impact on the progress of the RCE and will be the deliverables of a bioinformatics program. It should be noted that new bioinformatics technologies are anticipated to be developed and they will be necessary to integrate and analyze the many diverse types of data, and ideas for these tools will come from the biological scientists working in the projects, but bioinformaticists will develop the solution. We also hope to leverage the existing commercial and non-commercial systems (tools, databases, development environments) to speed the bioinformatics solution development, for maximum data exchange compatibility, issues like security and for robustness. The Specific Aims of this core are: 1) To develop applied computational biology resources - codes, databases and interpretations of data - to facilitate advances in the understanding and characterization of Class A-C pathogens and to provide computational support for project investigators; 2) To apply our computer codes (new and pathogen adapted) to pre-compute a variety of data for Class A-C pathogens, and these will include ORF amplification primers (PCR, qPCR), DNA chip oligonucleotide probes for re-sequencing and expression, a collection of text-based literature and its extracted and associated biomedical objects; 3) To construct a pathogen-specific internet accessible, www-based (http://bt.swmed.edu) Bioinformatics tool set and data warehouse of utilities and make it available to facilitate intra- and inter-institutional collaborations among project personnel and others in the biothreat and emerging pathogen research community; 4) We will establish and maintain computer servers to support this effort.